In the UK, until a sustained campaign over the last few years, about 1/3 of the fatalities in our gliding were following a cable break or other premature termination of launch, usually as a result of spinning in. (It should not have happened, and we have learned how to much reduce such events, but it was a fact.)

I hope the present efforts to increase the proportion of cable launches – by winch or car – in the USA do not go through a similar high accident rate. Please learn from our mistakes and how to avoid them, not repeat that history.

By the way, having a FES and seeing how I could in theory get away from a medium height or higher cable break, I believe that a lot of the old cable break/low slow turn/spin accidents would have been avoided had they had FES to climb away with.

Chris N